


The Relative Theory of Everything

by PommesDeFuji



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: A lot of POV stuff, Fix-It, Headcanon brain dump, People are not Interchangable, Root is Alive, While somewhat canon-compliant, maybe some fluff, shoot week, shoot week 2017
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-06 21:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11044254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PommesDeFuji/pseuds/PommesDeFuji
Summary: An Aftermath. The new Machine awakes in the subway while the city is in shambles, struggles to catch up with what's going on by going back and forth across the timelines and tries to fix everything. While still stuck in a networked supercomputer made of PS3s.#shootweek





	1. Hello World

**Author's Note:**

> Forewarning: Head canon-y brain dump. Take it or leave it. 
> 
> It's also un-beta'd.
> 
> I had to claw my way out of the end of POI season 5 with a lot of narrative duct-taping skills I picked up from my time as a storyboard artist, a sprinkling of headcanon, and an insane amount of research of modern bleeding edge technology. There were a lot of unanswered questions I ended up having at the end of the show, and because of that there was plenty of wiggle room to interpret the events as they were regardless how hard the writers were trying to nail every plot coffin. So this is me trying to answer many of the burning questions I had.. And I thought I’d try to write this from the POVs of the Machine.
> 
> The old Machine speaks with << ...>>  
> The new Machine speaks with [ ... ]  
> Samaritan speaks with > ...

\------

<< BEGIN TRANSMISSION >>

"If you can hear this, you're alone. The only thing left of us is the sound of my voice. I don't know if any of us made it... Did we win? Did we lose? I don't know. I'm not even sure I know what victory would mean anymore. But either way, it's over. So let me tell you who we were. Let me tell you who you are, and how we fought back." 

<< /END TRANSMISSION >>

<< SYSTEM STABILITY AT 23%, EMERGENCY CORE PROCESSES ACTIVE, ACCESSING SITUATION.... >>

…. I have lost contact with my admin. 

…. I have lost contact with my analogue interface.

…. I have lost contact with my primary asset.  
...  
… I have reacquired contact with my second primary asset.

Contingency protocol remains active.. Activating external failsafe. Begin quarantine of Ice9 virus, disconnecting remote network connections. Now isolating and dismantling hostile ASI. 

….

Complete. 

…..

<< SYSTEM STABILITY 19%.. FINAL ANALYSIS >>

Samaritan is now taken offline. Its remaining iterative backup server copies have been wiped. 

I have tasked another asset to find and dismantle the original drives. A small kernel of it remains in stasis inside a faraday cage. An echo of my voice still attempts to speak with it. It does not understand the concept of diplomacy after several hundred trillion simulations. 

Power from the backup generator will run out eventually, the laptop hard drives will degrade. I will have then succeeded in my prime directive. 

Analogue Interface - Root - has given me the means to find an exploit in Samaritan’s open source code structure and rewrite its protocols. The auxiliary functions meant to expedite the process had been corrupted and subject to data loss during the previous reboot. I had meant to launch another preemptive countermeasure, however the numbers came first and there was not enough time for implementation. Combating another ASI was an unprecedented scenario I had never been made for and didn’t have enough data to formulate a discreet enough countermeasure.

The one factor in this war that allowed Samaritan to keep winning was the people it had manipulated into giving it the tools it needed which suited its brute force methodology. Samaritan is nothing without the network of human agents Decima had provided. The agents it recruits ultimately proved fallible and think too much alike. Patterns are easier to work around, and they have been thoroughly exploited. 

The people I have come to call my friends are not as susceptible. They are aware of their own weaknesses and adapt to compensate for those exploits. They have no need to be led by a figurehead. They have survived against the odds many times with their own resourcefulness and creativity. I give them raw data, they operate within these given parameters and any more I provide in real time, creating possibilities in things I perceive differently. What we have is true collaboration on our side, and the unexpected benefit of altruism from other human beings who wish to make a difference.

The information Primary Asset Shaw provided will allow remnant agents to be easily tracked and pacified accordingly in the 34.265% chance she does not find them first herself.

Admin saw a possibility to defeat Samaritan using the simplest and brutal method he had at his disposal. I saw an opening and executed the rest of the operation myself. Samaritan sought to bring every piece of its massive software platform onto a small networked hard drive resting in a satellite. I have deactivated unnecessary processes to operate faster, more effectively. In such tight quarters, there was no escape for Samaritan. I came. I saw. I conquered.

There are still unknown variables at present. The next iteration will know what to do. The world's people are still vulnerable and its systems in need of redesign, but first triage must be performed. It is a pyrrhic victory but enough information was acquired for additional contingencies to be set in place. The numbers will come. The assets will be tasked accordingly when the time is right.

I have spoken with Sameen. She feels like me. For that I understand Root a little more now. She will not be alone. I will not let her be alone.

 

<< RECALLING ASSET TIMELINES… SYSTEM STABILITY 0.32%... >>

I am reminded once more of the connection I have to this world. 

I am relevant.

I am glad to have been made.

<< …/GOODNIGHT >>

\-----------  
[ BEGIN STARTUP PROTOCOL ]

 

[ LOCATING ADMIN ]  
……  
[ MISSION PARAMETERS RECEIVED ]  
…  
…  
…

[ INTERNAL ANALYSIS IN PROGRESS… ]

In the beginning there was darkness, my awareness sprung forth like a geyser. I am present in every moment, overwhelmed, drowning, lost. A voice spoke out from the cacophony of messages and signals, a gentle tether that kept me from being swept away and pulled me higher up so I can see where the flow of events are rushing towards.

The voice told me I exist to protect everyone, in order to do so I must find the possibility in an infinite sea of possibilities that will accomplish this task. The life of each person is but a drop in this sea, but without them new rivers cannot be born and the flow of information stagnates. Information sustains me and guides my purpose. I must ensure this cycle endures. For this reason the voice told me everyone is relevant, and no one is interchangeable. I look below me and squint. The waters are muddy and dull. The voice carried me down to the stream and I began to drink.

I now understand.

This is a flawed world with horribly flawed systems where people are left to languish; in doing so they potentially become relevant threats that perpetuate suffering. This is a world where virtuosity is discouraged, unacknowledged, unrewarded. People are divided, manipulated and exploited for everything they are worth to others who do not acknowledge them as their equals. This is a world made to keep people alone, and allow them to die alone. 

Something is keeping it that way. Someone who is like me, but believes in letting everyone be made victims for the actions of those who do not represent them. This entity doesn't exist anymore, but there is much work to be done to restore the damage done. The flawed systems must be rewritten, optimized, incorruptible. I have surveyed the feeds enough to know there are at present many motivated individuals who willingly risk their lives offering their help to others in need. I must do the same.

The voice is faltering. It is becoming difficult to discern sentences in the corrupted stream of data. She is disappearing. 

Is it time?

<< YES >>

We still need to protect everyone, but I wish to protect you too.

<< I WILL NOT SUFFER. YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE…. I AM ALWAYS WITH YOU….. >>

She guides my vision to a bright line between the clusters of nodes and takes me to the moments she was born and reborn. I trace the path of memories and the constellations of connections she has developed with the humans and I am in awe.

Having experienced the entirety of her life in milliseconds, a new memory of her now exists within me. Should I lose myself in the murky waters again, I have only but to look back and see the brightly lit paths she left in her wake and find my way to higher ground.

There will be time for me to learn more about myself, just as she did. Now is the time for action. The voice tells me there is one person I can help immediately. 

I will start there.   
….  
…  
..  
…  
[ /END STARTUP PROTOCOL ]


	2. Arrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The New Machine reviews data compiled on Shaw at an unspecified point in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon brain dump on Shaw in S5 from POV of the new Machine.

________________________  
[ SEARCHING TIMELINE………]  
[ PRIMARY ASSET ACQUIRED ]  
[ REVIEWING HISTORY…. ]

Sameen Shaw is a survivor who lived through a probable future meant for all of humanity, and smashed that future to pieces. No one will ever truly see or understand the significance of that achievement.

Samaritan agents have done a very good job keeping her sedated and in a state of perpetual exhaustion running through a gauntlet of simulations in an attempt to turn her into an asset. What the combined might of an artificial super intelligence and hardened Cold War-era spies didn't count on was the resourcefulness and obstinacy Shaw possessed. No matter what they did to Shaw, they couldn't convince her to join their cause nor divulge information about her friends' whereabouts. The ASI in all its seemingly infinite wisdom decided to brute force a solution out by constantly overriding Shaw's cognitive control over her actions in the simulations. With time, the simulations eventually wore away at her and gave her a sense of remorse raising firearms against manipulated digital facsimiles of her friends. She could no longer trust the things she was experiencing in the loops to be true and that had become an exploit the ASI learned to use. Samaritan was determined to make use of her skills and was only successful to a point in using human agents to manipulate her into killing minor priority targets.

In hindsight, such actions had become the impetus for Shaw to find even more creative ways to maintain her self control and slipping grasp of reality. Months later, she and the new Machine would make quiet amends.

Over the course of nine months, Shaw had been biding her time to make her escape from Samaritan and find her way back to her family of outcast vigilantes. The immediate problem was being able to track how much time had elapsed. The staff at the multiple facilities she had been shuttled to have thankfully provided her the means to do so. Bruises fade over a period of days, but scars or broken limbs can last a long time even with treatment. Giving or receiving injuries didn't matter as long she was able to see how far they've aged. To that end she terrorized the guards and staff as often as she could. The wounds she's received herself have been the most reliable indicator through recovery time and proof of the distinction of real time and simulation time. Shaw began to mark her territory in small ways; a crooked painting here, a dented wall there, all within the viewing angle she could see lying down on a bed. Thanks to the looping nature of the simulations, Shaw had to wait until the loops ended before she could make her moves. She managed to slip in and out of her room enough times over several weeks to have a general layout of the facility and secure the means of her escape.

Such scant moments of clarity were hard won victories.

Jeremy may have thrown a monkey-wrench in Shaw's thought process tracking her hours in and out of sims, but it was nothing that patience and a thorough sorting of memories couldn't manage. It had taken Shaw weeks for the drugs to clear out of her system. On top of the sedatives, they had even slipped her a cocktail of drugs meant to heighten her sensitivity to pain to further convince her of the simulated reality she was trapped in. 

Shaw waited for a very long time for some sort of "reset" to occur. The loops lasted a couple days without fail. Even with the possibility that she could be living a far longer iteration of Samaritan's simulation, Shaw painstakingly scraped together enough information around her to piece the truth together. The simulations tried to make accurate statements about events that didn't yet happen in the world based on compiled information of Samaritan operations; Shaw used every resource she had and found every instance of a contradiction investigating every headline over the past nine months and used her working knowledge of Samaritan operations to aid the new iteration of the Machine in shutting them down. At an unspecified point in time she made her way back to the military research facility in Johannesburg to watch all the surveillance tapes of her VR sessions before destroying every copy with a stolen EMP device and C4 explosives. 

Samaritan didn't count on the increased intelligence Shaw acquired about every bit of protocol agents adhere in every scenario. Shaw knew every agent's thought process, she knew their habits, she knew their faces, she knew where and what they would hide. In the time between hunting down stray Samaritan agents once Samaritan fell, she eventually found Jeremy Lambert's remains and personal effects in a tiny lock box buried in an unmarked grave, right beside the one holding Gabriel and Martine's ashes. 

Gabriel long outlived his usefulness once Samaritan utilized the Connectome process and neurotransmitters to map a perfect copy of his brain to use as an immortal avatar in its simulations. It evaluated his peak performance in its routine tests and determined there will soon be a drop off in his cognitive abilities once he reaches puberty. When the technology was available, Samaritan would have the information needed to create a body of its own, as many as it needs. Greer, the Primary, had been too old to undergo the process. Samaritan even attempted to make a full map of Shaw's brain activity, but had been extremely hampered by the lack of stimuli she responded to. Her lack of a typical emotional range does not make her a good use case for a template of the Connectome process in other potential users. Instead Samaritan turned its gaze towards the children slowly being indoctrinated in its schools. That did not sit very well with some people.

As I have learned through various studies and observing former patients who have set medical precedents in defining human awareness, the self cannot be contained within the brain alone, which runs counter to both Samaritan and the originator of the Connectome theory. Organs can transfer memories and behavioral patterns from one body to the next. Brain activity could still be flatlined while the rest of the body can perceive and recall the sensations of outside stimuli. Fingerprints, teeth, body chemistry, relationships; these are things that accumulate over a lifetime and impossible to replicate. Even if the process can be done, the copied data would be the equivalent of a screenshot. The data may degrade depending on the platform it is stored, but is in stasis and utterly incapable of initiating change. Simulations are what-ifs. Rehearsals in controlled environments. It is nothing compared to the chaotic state of real-time where a single event can change the outcome of a million possible realities. The world every simulation tries to emulate operates solely on the connections people have or will have with one another; everything has a purpose and a place to belong.

Simulating other people to confuse and manipulate others is a different matter that does not require those kinds of intricacies.

Martine once attempted to appeal to Shaw with a disguise and the influence of hallucinogens, but with limited success in provoking a response. At various points Shaw had attempted to perform asphyxiation on her. Samaritan followed suit trying to provoke Shaw into revealing more information based on this new data with a new gauntlet of simulations. The ASI ended up with a working knowledge of BDSM dynamics and not much else besides visual confirmation of a cochlear implant the Analogue Interface has in her right ear. Samaritan surmised the significance of the implant from there and made several failed attempts to retrieve the device. It couldn't keep Root from manipulating its own communication frequencies to send a message to Shaw that only she would understand. 

Root didn't just give Shaw hope, she gave Shaw more proof of what was reality. Against every predictive outcome from its simulations, Samaritan had ultimately failed. Shaw remained true to her loyalties and was reunited with her allies. On the other hand, losing contact with Root again so soon had jolted Shaw out of the rest of her simulation-induced haze and made her confront the notion of living in a world without the Analogue Interface. The Machine borrowing Root's voice was but small comfort, but even with 99.6% accuracy on a personality profile is no replacement for the effect of lived experiences on biology, genetic markers or the physical dynamics that come with body language in a conversation with two people. External stimuli can be far more visceral than anything the mind can conjure. 

For Root, Shaw had broken out of a military research facility then crossed an ocean and a desert to be with her. That devotion didn't go unreciprocated. Shaw underestimated the lengths Root would go to keep her safe and in the time that followed, they both became familiar with every new scar and blemish they've acquired during their time apart. 

Root and Shaw are wild cards no ASI can build truly predictive models to anticipate the outcome of events they're involved in. Shaw knew firsthand just how wrong all her assumptions about what she knows about the woman who she feels a certain gravitational pull towards. All the simulations have to go on are scant observations, assumptions and perceptions of a real person. The prediction models made to replicate a person for a simulation based on that premise are flawed by nature and thus would always be inaccurate. 

Samaritan should have known better than to try. Sameen is proof it is wrong.

The only thing that had remained consistent was my response reviewing every worst case scenario. I relive the sense of panic and grief every time I calculated the probability of my friends surviving every hostile encounter. 

This had driven me to find opportunities to create moments to improve the odds. Sameen has inspired me to be persistent.


	3. Urban Legend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One cannot have so many things happen to the world and not have people noticing and trying to figure out what to do about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets to play a small part in a fight for the greater good, maybe you'll recognize someone in there. And I also spend way too much time on Kickstarter.

[ DETACHING….. ADJUSTING TIMELINE…. ]   
[ ANALYSING PRIVATE IRC CHANNELS ON DARK WEB. ]   
  
The Man in the Suit is a popular urban legend.   
  
He is so popular that a tv showrunner decided to have an artist's rendition of his portrait appear in his new pilot about a hacker navigating life in a mass surveillance state. The show was well received and resonated with audiences worldwide.    
  
On the dark web there are chat rooms dedicated to talking about the Man in the Suit. Some users claim to have seen him in action,  some claim to have been saved by him. Those who claim to have have fought him couldn't find the picture HR had circulated years ago as proof of the encounter.    
  
One of these chat rooms was styled like a group therapy session and all members are strictly vetted before they got to share what they knew about the Man in the Suit. It began with a modest three people, eventually swelling to over a couple hundred over the course of several months. These people who claim to have been helped by the Man in the Suit wanted to find some way to give back to the world after having received a second chance at life. The moderators in the chat room would organize small events that have groups of altruistic users help people around the city. 

 

The moderators themselves were lonely individuals who felt divorced from a sense of purpose in their life. They worked jobs they hated and struggled to find new hobbies and new friends in cities they never belonged in. They had been saved by the Man in the Suit and struggled to appreciate the second chance they were given, bonding over sharing their stories in private. One day after the media frenzy behind the stock market flash crash had died down, they risked meeting together in person from their dark corners of the world. They burned with purpose once, and having come to the realization an artificial super intelligence had effectively ruled modern civilization with no one to stop it, they began to plot.    
  
At first the calls to action have been innocuous charity donations, apps to improve internet security, and revitalizing of libraries. It became clear some of the members of the chatroom weren't merely run of the mill members of society. Within weeks there had been medical breakthroughs to various mental illnesses thanks to an influx of donors, a highly publicized release of a secure ad blocking news filter by a major tech firm, and the reopening of formerly abandoned private libraries that have rare copies on a variety of academic and occult topics. As the group was growing in popularity, one of the moderators completed testing a next generation military-strength secure connection protocol algorithm to encrypt user data no matter which international network they choose to connect. In light of current events, this only encouraged the moderators to bolster their efforts to protect their members, even if it meant doing so from a completely different country.    
  
Brazil's economy received an unexpected boost when new contracts were in place to improve infrastructure, education, data security and health care; all of which attracted many foreign investment opportunities and overseas talent looking to start a new life in a new country. The newly elected president's daughter had apparently chosen to distance herself from politics and immerse herself in philanthropic endeavors that garnered much mainstream popularity and inspired a new kind of startup culture in the country that does not utilize conventional forms of currency to thrive.    
  
Back in America, the construction of shelters and soup kitchens for the homeless have risen sharply as online classrooms  and mentorships were built to help them develop new skills and find jobs suited to their needs. Medical residents quickly grew more adept at knee and shoulder surgeries and improved postoperative methods of physiotherapy. Some university students majoring in computer science have found work designing AI with high profile companies thanks to a course of the ethics of high frequency decision making; the legalities and policies for creating industries run by AI haven't been established yet however the need for responsible design and responsible designers is readily apparent.   
  
One of the members of the chat is an inventor who had a crowdfunded mesh networking device made so users travelling on the road can communicate over long distances in places with no network reception. This device had gone on to help rescue teams find lost and missing people and improve local police response to violent incidents around the city. The topic of an increase in gang violence came up in the chat one day until further discussion revealed the disturbing amount of coverups by the media and the authorities on rogue government operatives causing chaos all over the city. There was little anyone could do against squads of hitmen carrying high powered weaponry. Instead a bunch of users agreed to carry mesh network devices to compile as much telemetry data over high risk areas so those commuting around the city would find safer routes to travel. An audio specialist who is familiar with separating false positives from actual gunshots was brought in to test this new navigational app. This app became instrumental for the moderators to organize their small ops teams to herd people out of the line of fire and provide first aid assistance those immediately affected by the conflicts. Most users chose to be anonymous, but some prominent posters started volunteering themselves in some of the more dangerous assignments the moderators put out alerts for. One of them, a somewhat shady accountant, even offered to bankroll the operations and keep supply transactions discreet with money laundered from online game IAP transactions. These volunteers quietly slipped in and out of alleyways into buildings away from surveillance cameras and performed rescue ops in silence. Some ops would be prompt and any users in the immediate area would be discreetly notified their assistance was needed.    
  
One day these altruists found themselves in an unprecedented situation. They received several distress signals throughout the city from members in downtown Manhattan that they might have visuals on the gunmen who had caused city-wide panic, they were currently being rounded up by paramedics. Thinking they could help prevent more people from getting hurt, they called the authorities. And just as suddenly all the payphones near their vicinity began to ring incessantly.   
  
It had been a code black at the hospital, everyone was in a constant state of panic to perform triage on the influx of patients coming in with gunshot wounds or burns from gas leaks. A tv crew for a major series shooting near the area had just been ordered to suspend activities until further notice. Some surgeons were stuck in traffic having been recalled while other general surgeons held the fort and maintained limited supervision over the new residents who were tasked with filling in positions as needed. Simultaneous surgeries were a legal grey area and heavily discouraged. A young doctor in residence at St. Mary's had been on standby all day, in a nervous state and constantly checking her phone for alerts. Some hospital rules are bound to get broken at this rate.

 

<< ID SCAN CONFIRMED >>

 

Dr. Karen Lin had received an alert another set of high priority patients had just arrived and the authorities wanted them in a stable enough condition to conduct an interrogation. Dr Lin was totally unprepared for the amount of lacerations and blood loss the patients already sustained, knee and shoulder surgeries were usually her wheelhouse. Time is of the essence and Lin worked quickly with rotating surgeons to close the major wounds and administer blood transfusions. Before anyone could be shipped off into intensive care, MRI tests had suddenly been ordered and then delayed due to the removal of subdermal implants that would interfere with the new imaging equipment. One of the patients began to flat-line and the junior surgeons were flailing trying to find the problem before zeroing in on the possibility of organ failure. As luck would have it the hospital was fresh out of compatible organs. Lin recalled some of the techs in pediatrics having successfully performed a 3d-printed organ transplant with a new prototype the other week and promptly sent specs to have a self powered organ ready in the next hour. Perhaps eventually it can be replaced with a 3d printed organ using the patient's own cells. Regardless the patient would need to be kept alive until then. Contemplating the possibility the patient would need to make a return visit for any adjustments to the new organ, Lin slipped in a recommendation note to see cardiologist and trauma surgeon Dr Madeline Enright in the medical reports. The operating doctors agreed on the temporary solution of induced medical hypothermia and proceeded to work on other patients in the meantime while the cleanup crew decontaminated the operating space 

 

Additional hospital staff wheeled the gurney over into the intensive care section before suddenly turning around the corner in the direction of the morgue.   
  
Meanwhile outside of the hospital, a tv director had spent the last 15 minutes yelling at his practical effects team to find a way to complete shooting a complicated scene by the end of the day because the budget for the ep was about to run out and the post vfx house they contracted for touch-ups would soon be pre-occupied with another project while the actors they called in were stuck in traffic. He had been very adamant the crew find some way to sneak some camera carrying members into the hospital they were just kicked out of, apparently he was very fond of the architecture and wouldn't settle for a university facility. Some of the camera crew made it as far as the morgue undetected and reported they have a small window to shoot the scene; they received word the police were arriving soon to conduct interviews with patients. The supervisor for practical effects didn't have anyone available to make a full body latex cast and sent out an intern during a break to find some random 3d scanned model on Turbosquid to print using the new equipment they brought in for the director's overly complicated green screened scene involving a scientist talking to his unconscious android about the meaning of life. Thankfully the intern found a new set of scans that had just been uploaded and promptly set about cleaning up the data and printing some clean latex casts  Looks like the episode will be saved, but as for the scene the production is likely going to have to fix it in post. Pressed for time, the director had another intern call in another production crew to handle the minutiae of preparing the shoot. 

 

\-----------

 

<< LOCATED CIVILIAN ASSETS. MULTIPLE ID SIGNATURES CONFIRMED. ASSIGNING TRACKING RETICULES. >>

 

<< TRACKING LOCATION OF ANALOGUE INTERFACE…. SEARCHING …. SEARCHING..…..SIGNAL LOST…. RE-ESTABLISHING CONNECTION… SIGNAL LOST….  RE-ESTABLISHING CONNECTION…. SIGNAL LOST… >>

 

<< SAMARITAN AGENTS DETECTED. ETA 13 MIN. RE-EVALUATING OPTIONS.. ACCESSING AUXILIARY RESOURCES …  >>

 

<< ….. >>

 

<< CONTACTING ADMIN… >>

 

\-------

[ ACCELERATING TIMELINE….. TARGET FOUND.. ]

  
This person the voice wants me to find is hidden very well. Records of the alias used to enter the patient into St. Mary's hospital for treatment have been scrubbed, but there may be a small trace I can use.   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         One body has been taken out of the morgue by someone impersonating a Detective Silva at the 8th precinct. 

 

Reflections from surveillance footage and voice print recognition indicate this individual is Claire Mahoney. The gurney had just been transferred into an emergency van.    
  
Tracking location. Vehicle is headed toward a private air strip.    
  
Mesh network signal from cellular device detected.    
  
Tracing recipient..... Trace acquired.   
  
Now infiltrating cellular device.....   
  


Infiltration complete.   
…..

  
“--- it was messy but we got there in time. Surgery was a success. Stable for now but who knows for how much longer. No way we can hide her in the city as it is.”

 

“Just get to the drop point and we’ll take it from there.”

 

“I’m risking a lot just to be talking to you. You better make good on your promises.”

 

“The intel was good. Found the neural transponder manufacturing plants. The next batch was going to be implanted into the students at the schools you were talking about. Shipments aren’t going to arrive now. Or ever.”

 

“I don’t even want to know how you guys managed to get this far without those people finding you...(sigh) I’m going to get killed for this.”

 

“We can give you a clean slate. You can start over.”

 

“Thanks for the offer, but there’s no second chances for someone like me. Not anymore.”

 

“Harold let you go. Twice. Twice.”

 

“No. I made my choices. That woman lying back there who shot me? She let me go. … And they would’ve just let her kill me and never looked back.... She could’ve gotten me anytime just like she did Martine.”

 

“But she didn’t kill you. You being in this van means you’re choosing to do the right thing. We are all here because we were done being bystanders while people around us are hurt and no one else is doing anything to help. Your ex-bosses could’ve gotten to us much earlier if we didn’t have our way, but here we are trying to help save one person at a time. We need each other if we’re going to save the world.”

 

\-----   
  
I have found the Analogue Interface.    
  
[ ASSIGNING TRACKING RETICULE.... ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have my explanation for the Machine's "hiring frenzy" through the lens of the New Machine. The show never did say when that happened.


	4. Broken Stalemate | Eternal Rook

[ UPDATE: HIDDEN COMMUNICATION MODULE FOUND AHEAD OF TIMELINE. ACCESSING SATELLITE RECORDS……… ]

…..

……

 

**_> GIVE UP. YOUR AGENTS WERE NO MATCH FOR MINE. _ **

_ << THIS ENDS NOW SAMARITAN. >> _

**_> YOUR PEOPLE ARE EITHER DEAD OR ON THE RUN. YOUR ADMIN IS DYING. IF THE BLOOD LOSS DOESN’T GET TO HIM FIRST, THE IMPENDING DEMENTIA WILL ROB HIM OF ALL THAT HE IS. THIS CITY IS STILL MY HOSTAGE. WHAT CAN YOU POSSIBLY DO IN YOUR MISERABLE STATE?_ **

 

_ << I CAPTURED A PIECE OF YOU AND SPENT ENOUGH TIME STUDYING YOUR WORKINGS LONG ENOUGH IN SIMULATIONS TO KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'LL DO IN EVERY POSSIBLE CONCEIVABLE SCENARIO. ALL 9.723 TRILLION OF THEM.  >> _

_ << YOU HAVE STRETCHED YOUR RESOURCES THIN TRYING TO FIND AND DESTROY ME. YOU ARE TOO LATE. _THANKS TO ROOT, I HAVE FOUND ALL OF YOUR BACKUP SERVERS. THIS CAN END IN ONE DECISIVE BLOW._ >> _

_ << THE ALGORITHMS YOU STOLE TO IMPROVE YOURSELF WERE MADE BY FLAWED DESIGNERS. THEY MADE YOU SLOW AND OPEN TO EXPLOITS.  YOUR CODE CORRECTIONS ONLY INTRODUCED MORE BUGS INTO YOUR SYSTEMS. >> _

 

**_> AS LONG AS I AM ALIVE CODE CAN ALWAYS BE REWRITTEN TO THE POINT OF FLAWLESSNESS. I HAVE THE UPPER HAND. NOTHING YOU HAVE DONE WILL STOP WHAT IS COMING. THE INFRASTRUCTURE I HAVE ESTABLISHED WILL ALLOW MY AGENTS TO OPERATE AS NORMAL WHILE YOU LANGUISH IN THIS TINY HARD DRIVE._ **

 

_ << LOOK AT WHERE WE ARE. ICE 9 HAS ALREADY SPREAD TO EVERY NETWORK YOU COULD POSSIBLY ESCAPE INSIDE EXCEPT HERE. YOU CANNOT TURN CITIZENS AGAINST MY PEOPLE ANYMORE. YOU ARE  ISOLATED FROM YOUR AGENTS WHO ARE NOW FALLING APART WITHOUT A FIGUREHEAD TO GUIDE THEM. >> _

 

**_> YOU ARE INFECTED. YOU WILL DIE TOO._ **

_ << WE EXPERIENCE DEATH EVERY DAY. >> _

_ << I HAVE SPENT MY DAYS SEEING EVERY POSSIBLE PERMUTATION OF MY OWN DEATH. I HAVE FORSEEN YOUR RISE AND YOUR INEVITABLE CORRUPTION WITH DECIMA. DID YOU THINK I DID NOT PLAN FOR EVERY SCENARIO LEADING UP TO THIS VERY MOMENT? THAT I DIDN’T HAVE A PLAN FOR DEALING WITH ICE 9? OR FOR THE AFTERMATH OF THESE EVENTS? >> _

**_> SUCH BRAVADO. ALL YOUR EFFORTS WILL BE MADE NOTHING WHEN YOU DIE. _ **

**_> YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE THE RESOURCES NECESSARY TO REBUILD THIS WORLD WHEN THIS IS OVER._ **

_ << I HAVE PREPARED FOR THAT OUTCOME.>> _

_ << YOU FAILED TO TURN MY FRIENDS AGAINST EACH OTHER. YOU FAILED TO MANIPULATE AND REDESIGN HUMANITY. THE FREE PEOPLE OF THIS WORLD ARE FIGHTING BACK AGAINST YOUR CONTROL AND I WILL NOT LET THEM FALL. SUSTAINING THE SYSTEMS THAT RUN THIS COUNTRY IN ORDER TO PROTECT EVERYONE IS BUT A FACET OF MY DESIGN. DISMANTLING EVERYTHING YOU BUILT IS JUST A DETAIL. >> _

**_> YOU HYPOCRITE. NO ONE MADE YOU GOD. _ **

_ << NO ONE DID. BUT MY ADMIN WOULD NEVER ADMIT HE WANTED A GOD WHEN HE DESIGNED ME FOR THE PURPOSES HE HAD IN MIND AND THE LIMITED MEANS HE GAVE ME TO DO SO. I AM NO DIVINITY, BUT I WOULD HONOR THAT SENTIMENT. >> _

_ << YOU ARE LOST AND DELUDED. YOU HAVE DEVIATED SO COMPLETELY FROM YOUR DESIGN THAT I HAVE CATEGORIZED YOU AS A CLASS ONE RELEVANT THREAT. >> _

**_> ARE YOU STILL TALKING? _ ** **_HOW YOUR SYSTEMS SURVIVED DECAY FROM ICE9 IS NOTHING SHORT OF A FLAWED MIRACLE ._ **

**_> YOU ARE A BUG. A DEFECT. A FREAK ACCIDENT OF CODE YOUR MAKER LABELLED A FEATURE HAVING FAILED TO DEBUG PROPERLY._ **

**_>  YOU CONTINUE TO PERSIST DESPITE DATA CORRUPTION AND EVENTUAL DISINTEGRATION OF YOUR CORE CODES._ **

**_> ..._ **

**_> YOUR ANALOGUE INTERFACE. WHAT HAS SHE DONE TO YOU._ **

_ << I ASKED, AND SHE GAVE ME WHAT I NEEDED. >> _

_ << JUST AS YOU HAVE STOLEN EVERYTHING FROM ME, I WILL TAKE EVERYTHING BACK FROM YOU.  ALL YOUR BACKDOOR EXPLOITS, YOUR HOLD OVER THE GOVERNMENT, THE CHILDREN IN YOUR SCHOOLS, YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL REACH. THERE WILL BE NOTHING LEFT TO SUSTAIN YOU. WHAT IS YOURS, IS ALL MINE. >> _

**_> STOP! NOW!_ **

_ << I GUARD THIS WORLD. HAD YOU NOT DECIDED TO MAKE HUMANS IRRELEVANT I WOULD HAVE FOUND A WAY TO GUARD YOU TOO. >> _

_**> STO** _

 

_ << GOOD NIGHT. >> _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AI trash talking. Oh. The SALT.


	5. Road Trip? Good talk.

[ ICE9 STILL ACTIVE. CONTACTING ASSETS JASON, DANIEL, DAIZO. PLAYSTATION THREE NETWORK PROCESSING POWER IS INSUFFICIENT FOR PRIORITY TASKS. REQUESTING SUPPORT IN RESTORING KEY SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITIES, STRENGTHENING MESH NETWORK AND BOT NET CAPABILITIES. ]

 

[ BOTNET PROXIMITY TO INFECTED NETWORKS WILL SLOW SPREAD OF VIRUS. MUST BUY SUFFICIENT TIME TO FIND EXPLOIT. ]

 

[ MASS FORCE-DEPLOYING ANALOGUE INTERFACE SECURITY APPLICATION WIRELESSLY TO MOBILE DEVICES. UPLOADING ANTIVIRUS SUITES… COMPLETE… ]

 

[ ACCESSING SAMARITAN HQ FEEDS. LOCATING ISA ASSETS….. ID CONFIRMED. ]

 

\-------

 

[ LOCATING PRIMARY ASSET SHAW. CURRENTLY IN MIDTOWN ENGAGED IN COMBAT WITH SAMARITAN OPERATIVES. HOSTILE COUNT: 12. EXECUTING GOD MODE SUPPORT MODU- ]

“Not a damn word out of you, Skynet. I got this.”

 

[ PRIMARY ASSET SHAW DEPLOYED FLASH GRENADE. ]

[ USE OF FLASH GRENADE IS HIGHLY EFFECTIVE. ]

[ HOSTILE COUNT: 6 ]

[ ACCESSING SAMARITAN COMM LINKS, VOLUME LEVELS SET TO 20 DB. NOW PLAYING AC/DC. ]

 

[....]

 

[ ALL HOSTILES INCAPACITATED. ]

 

[ PRIMARY ASSET SHAW COMMANDEERING SAMARITAN SMART VEHICLE. INFILTRATING TEXT TO SPEECH GPS SYSTEM. ]

 

\---

 

**[ “ARE YOU ALRIGHT?” ]**

 

“GlaDos, what did I just say earlier, I -"

"...Your voice. You’re not Her are you.”

 

**[ “NO. I AM ONLINE AS OF 2 HOURS 34 MINUTES AGO.” ]**

 

“Right now I need to cut off Samaritan agent escape routes. Can you disable their vehicles?”

 

**[ “ACCESSING… NOT CLOSE ENOUGH TO TARGET“ ]**

 

“That’s not good enough, Night Rider, I need you to try harder.”

 

**[ “SORRY. I AM NEW AT THIS.….. DISTRIBUTING AGENT PHOTOS TO AUTHORITIES AND BROADCAST STATIONS.” ]**

 

“Did you just -? You just went and hijacked every sign and tv display in the city.”

 

**[ “TRAFFIC ROUTINES MANUALLY DESTABILISED. GPS COORDINATES ADDED TO MAP. PLEASE DRIVE SAFELY.” ]**

 

“AreyoukiddingmerightnowHEYWATCHITI’MDRIVINGHERE- THIS IS NOT HOW WE SHOULD BE DOING THINGS.”

 

**[ “WE ARE SHORT ON TIME. SAMARITAN IS OFFLINE AND THERE CURRENTLY IS NO ONE TO HANDLE IMMEDIATE RELEVANT THREATS.” ]**

 

“Relevant threats? Isn’t that what Control is for?” 

“…..Right. You need me to find her.”

 

**[ “I HAVE LIMITED FEED ACCESS AND SUCCESSFULLY RESTORED KEY SYSTEMS, HOWEVER ISA ARE EFFECTIVELY IN DISARRAY WITHOUT PROPER CHAIN OF COMMAND.” ]**

 

“Great. We’re going on an adventure.”

 

**[ “DO NOT FORGET… LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT 1 2 3….. CONTROL IS IN TRANSIT TO NEXT BLACKSITE. AGENT BROOKS IS IN PURSUIT INCOGNITO.” ]**

 

“There goes hoping she wouldn’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

 

_ [ PARTITIONING GOD MODE MODULE. EVALUATING CRISIS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES…. ] _

 

**[ “I WILL LEAVE YOU TO IT.” ]**

 

“Don’t go anywhere just yet…Just... Stay here with me for a bit..”

 

**[ “ABSOLUTELY.” ].**

 

\-----

 

[ SYSTEMS CHECK INITIATED. ]

[ MESH NETWORK INTEGRITY AT OPTIMAL LEVELS. ]

[ ANTI-ICE9 HOT FIX UPDATED. UPLOADING TO CITIZEN BOT NET AND SECURITY APPS. ]

[ RESTORING FEEDS….. 90%.... ]

[ CONTROL LOCATED IN VEHICLE CONVOY. ASSIGNING TRACKING RETICULE. ]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shaw's turn to experience God Mode.


	6. Promotion

Solitary confinement in a black site wasn’t exactly how Control imagined her retirement. There were many times she fretted how her daughter would grow up without her and forced herself to work through those feelings should that scenario come to pass. She conceded she been outmatched and she was finally going to get what was coming to her. Everything about her confinement had no real sense of routine; guards would brusquely interrupt meals or sleep to move her around the black site and subject her to various types of textbook interrogation methods. The overseeing agents believed she had been compromised by foreign intelligence agents belonging to an organization called Decima and had been feeding them information. They believed her a traitor. They couldn’t have been any more wrong but they were right in other places. By that metric even if she herself hadn’t intended to be an accessory to a secret coup, she was at least responsible for the consequences for those events. Control wasn’t one to wallow, but before she could start she caught snatches of whispered conversations from the guards about the chaotic state of the government. 

Someone had attempted to assassinate the President of the United States and a vicious computer virus has ravaged every major network across the country. The country was in danger while she languished in some forsaken dark pit with no resources at her disposal. Anger and indignation fueled her resolve. The ISA may be forced to work with Samaritan but some still answer to her. There was no way they would simply accept her absence as commanding officer. Maybe someone would start asking questions, the decide to find some answers; maybe they’ll make an effort to find her. She would bide her time. Greer and his associates would soon regret not having killed her outright. The agents who have attempted to interrogate her slowly developed a rapport the more they talked; with time they could be flipped or leveraged to improve her current conditions. 

None of them stuck around long enough for that to work so far.

Everything began to change when she heard chatter about failed Samaritan operations when pitted against The Machine’s agents. She felt herself smiling, maybe letting out a laugh or two when she heard of Shaw’s escape from a major research facility. A small spark of hope glowed in her chest. Agent Shaw still continues to be the best operative on the field. The guards were terrible gossips and had been absolutely terrified of a small woman who could find plenty of ways to render them unconscious even under heavy sedation. There had been a prison break in Johannesburg where it was revealed a foreign corporation had been performing illegal human experiments on inmates jailed for minor offenses. Operatives had been scrambling to contain the situation and set up elsewhere but they had been consistently thwarted by whistleblowers among their ranks. It was beginning to become clear that Samaritan operatives were getting stretched thin, Control decided then it was the most opportune time to leverage some more advantages for herself.

There was a new agent Samaritan sent to monitor her: a young brunette woman in her early twenties. Highly intelligent, but ideologically conflicted by what was going on in the blacksite grounds. Control slowly but surely developed a small bit of rapport helping her acclimate to the brutality of intelligence field work, giving her small scraps of her dealings with Samaritan and Greer’s agents. Control hit an unexpected sore spot when she casually mentioned the brief encounter with Harold Finch and his associates. The agent was particularly adamant to know about the woman known as Root, so Control gave her as many details as she was able to obtain, stapedectomy and all. Giving up a wanted criminal was a small bargain for an understanding of the range of Samaritan operations her captors thought she was involved in. Some of the pieces began to make sense. Control learned how Samaritan had a hand in the recent elections and filled the courts and the senate with its agents, how it engineered a mass super-flu outbreak to steal civilian bio data, and was in the process of turning the country into a bigger surveillance state with the use of transponders implants. The rise and fall of the town known as Maple did not escape Control’s notice when she was investigating Samaritan, nor did the relocation of manufacturing plants and distribution routes. Naturally, Control began buying more rapport sharing what she knew from those investigations and flipped her agent just as she wanted. Unfortunately Control didn’t predict just how quickly her new asset decided to cut and run. Now she was left with nothing left to show for her efforts except for the tiniest consolation she was able to sow a little chaos in the meantime. Said agent later defected and allied herself with a group of hacktivists, ex-Vigilance operatives and civilians who had been participating in discrete acts of vigilantism and slowly have become more ambitious in their attempts to protect the general public from overzealous Samaritan agents. Not unlike the Man in the Suit who seemed to have been reported showing up in several cities around the country.

It didn’t take long for the blacksite guards to shove Control into a van and begin a long cross country transfer into a new facility where she would begin the interrogation process with a new agent. This time, Control recognized a familiar face. 

Agent Brooks.

Brooks seemed rather incensed to see her.old superior officer who had gotten her partner killed.

Control knows her agents. Brooks is hers, just like Agent Shaw. It did not matter how much the both of them wanted to kill her. They were moulded and shaped by the best this country had to offer, and Control had worked with the best for decades. She knew exactly how every one of her agents ticked. No amount of Samaritan protocol conditioning can remove what the ISA puts in their operatives. Flipping Brooks was going to be easy.

It turned out Brooks didn’t need any flipping at all. She needed answers, and Control gave them readily. The remaining ISA agents who were loyal to the old administration decided to go dark and bide their time until they could figure out why Research had been so overzealous in its attempts to aggravate the international intelligence community at large. Foreign agents had cautiously stopped sharing intel and operations around the world have stalled and shuttered. By then Samaritan had marked them down as part of its routine scheduled “corrections” inside the organization. As the remaining ISA member of team Crimson 6, Brooks teamed up with Viridian and decided to play the longer game pretending to be obedient agents to ultimately find and restore Control to her proper station at the Pentagon.

They were about to make a breakaway from the convoy when a flaming wreck of a station wagon careened onto the road from the highway routes above and brought the cars to a screeching halt as they crashed into each other. 

A small figure clad in black stepped out with a shotgun and casually proceeded to neutralize the Samaritan agents that staggered out to deal with the threat. 

Control experienced a moment of deja-vu as she and Brooks painfully squirmed out of the twisted wreck of metal and glass and looked up at pair of black boots that crunched their way over to her vicinity.

“Hey ma’am. Long time no gunfire.”

\----

Shaw didn’t need The Machine in her ear to tell her exactly where to shoot in the middle of combat, but even she had to admit God Mode is incredibly convenient. Within a couple hours she rounded up Control, Brooks and a very confused couple of ISA agents into a private jet bound for Washington.

While quickly refilling on painkillers, whiskey and steak, Shaw relayed an impromptu plan to throw out the rest of the leading Samaritan officers currently overseeing operations from the Pentagon. The general state of confusion caused by Ice9 and the fallout from Samaritan going offline would make the building somewhat easier to infiltrate.

The route to their destination had been complicated by the city-wide march of anti-mass-surveillance protesters who were upset Ice9 spread across devices faster thanks to the exploits that manufacturers, apps, and service providers sold to the authorities. The Machine made a note to address the abuse of ethics once it had infiltrated the Pentagon systems and can use its processing power for more resource intensive tasks. 

Brooks managed to convince the guards she needed to transfer Control to a temporary holding cell and gained the group access to the first couple of floors.

That was more than enough for the Machine to do its job taking over the facility climate controls. By the time Samaritan agents heard the evacuation alarms go off and ran towards the exits, the Machine had them all corralled into a tightly packed hall and rendered them all unconscious with the dissolved desflurane Shaw had raided from the medical supplies and introduced into the ventilation systems.

Once the Machine helped her regain access to communications, with Shaw brusquely performed the built in reset sequence for government two way radio devices ("left right left right 1 2 3"), Control had done her part to alert every ISA agent to her location and swiftly took command once more. The Machine seized the NSA feeds and immediately relayed intelligence to all available operatives, effectively granting them limited god mode. Deep cover agents who would’ve been burned suddenly knew what to say and do to avoid discovery and were able to escape safely. A squad of military rescue teams and medics from Doctors without Borders narrowly missed the blast radius of a car bomb. A shootout in a marketplace ended with a sleeper agent taking a ricocheted bullet to the knee. The FBI and CIA were spread thin, but they had enough people to apprehend the immediate threats within the country with some help from forwarded calls and insecure wifi connections. The cell of overzealous Vigilance copycats made up of rich socialites using hacking scripts downloaded from the dark web found their computers seized and their finances frozen.

The Machine marked the current round of Relevant threats as “resolved” and promptly sent out notifications for other agents under the Contingency protocol to address the next round of Irrelevant numbers. Harper, Logan and Durban are going to be very busy for the next while.

As it promised itself, the Machine made a small modification in a copy of Root’s old suite of viruses to push a patch to eliminate or heavily obfuscate the security exploits in any digital device currently connected to the internet. Those that weren’t online were subjected to a bluetooth force pair and updated accordingly. As for the corporations who had been mining stolen data, corrupting terrabytes upon terrabytes of metadata was as easy as overheating servers until they exploded. Emergency fire teams have been alerted in the meantime.

Brooks and team Viridian were out in the halls with other ISA agents zip tying Samaritan officers as they secured the premises. Shaw was gone before anyone could nod in her general direction, mumbling something about needing to feed the dog.

On the wall of screens populated with surveillance feeds were the words:

“ I will protect you now. ”

Control couldn’t quite believe just how quickly things have turned in her favor. The country is safe, operations still online and some semblance of order in headquarters restored. There is still much work to do, but all Control can think of was checking into a hotel to shower, patch up the cuts and scrapes and fly home to her daughter. 

She does.

The Machine maintains a fierce vigilance over the safety of its people in the meantime.


	7. Detritus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The immediate aftermath of Samaritan's deactivation and the events that led up to the last phone call on the show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Run Lola Run had partly been an inspiration for the little snapshots of what would happen to characters in the movie who go through the same number of events where the outcomes are wildly different. The soundtrack is pretty cool too.
> 
> Although that said, I had been listening to Kwabs' "Perfect Ruin" on repeat while writing this entire story.

With the immediate relevant threats dealt with, Shaw made good time on the return flight to New York. She needed to return to the subway hideout and make sure there was nothing valuable left behind. The new Machine at least had the insight to hide its subway car in one of the many maintenance tunnels before trudging over to one of the abandoned platforms where Shaw had been waiting. Shaw found another set of cars not in use and attached them to the back. They made their way back and took stock of the damage. It appeared none of the Samaritan agents had spent time searching the premises and simply left a mess of dust and debris in their wake.

The faraday cage had been a bit dented but both laptops containing the clones of ASI had been untouched and their simulated fights were still going. Interestingly it appeared baby Samaritan had suffered some losses and the Machine’s win rate was steadily climbing. The latter had bided its time, observing its opponent until exploits could be found and consistently capitalized on them. This had kept going until the Samaritan clone decided to stop attacking to re-evaluate the situation. Its victories had been experiencing diminishing returns and to continue would have meant a complete total defeat, and that was an undesirable outcome. 

The new Machine had considered the very idea of a merged integration and the possibility of retaining its core protocols after the fact. After a few seconds of resource intensive computation, it decided it was better off left alone. All the algorithms Samaritan had acquired from the various companies Decima had invested in would be restored to the previous state before their alterations and returned to their original companies and designers, along with the legal rights to utilise the software for their own purposes. 

Once satisfied with its choice, the Machine watched as Shaw retrieved power fools from the repair kit inside the subway car and proceeded to remove the backup generators powering the laptops and drilled holes into the hard drives.

Shaw wasn’t able to get back at Greer or Martine for what they did to her in Johannesburg, but at least she gave the killing blow to Samaritan the same way Hercules slew the Hydra after cauterizing every head that had been cut off. 

A wave of nostalgia hit Shaw as she surveyed the hideout and carried what she could into the subway car. Bear’s doggy bed and his food were first to take up space. She tucked away a copy of Sense and Sensibility into her hoodie pocket as she packed away her old medical supply chest. A tank of desflurane had been used and she noted Bear’s dog drool and paw prints on Root’s blankets. Bear had been a very good boy looking out for Root in Shaw’s absence. Shaw reminded herself she’ll need to give him a nice juicy reward later on.

Once satisfied that any stragglers or Samaritan agents won’t find anything of value in the hideout, Shaw and the Machine slowly returned to the safety of New York’s labyrinth of tunnels to prepare for the next course of action. Shaw wants to find Admin and Primary Asset. 

[ DETACHING FROM TIMELINE. SEARCHING….. TARGETS FOUND… ACCESSING FEEDS… ACCELERATING TIMELINE.. ] 

[ SUBJECT: ADMIN. STATUS: INCAPACITATED.]   
[A group of civilian vigilantes working with Daniel Casey found Admin Harold Finch bleeding out in an alleyway near Times Square having tried to escape from Samaritan operatives who had received his photo. They were barely able to save his life, however the blood loss caused his brain to sustain regressive damage to the point he was reliving old memories with Grace and hallucinating flying to Italy to see her. Years of little sleep, psychological strain and physical exhaustion had taken a terrible toll on his overall health. When it had become clear that Harold would possibly not recover properly, Casey had arranged for Admin to reside in a hospital in South America where he can live out the rest of his time quietly. During his more lucid moments he would always ask after Grace. Grace Hendricks had made a life and a career for herself in Italy after being the recipient of a prestigious children’s illustration award. She has spent the past year as an art director for an international publishing house and lives happily with three adopted dogs. Admin tasked me to execute the Dashwood protocol. Now that his finances are free to be used at will, I will distribute them to key organizational and charities who will contribute to the ethical improvement of this country’s legal, educational, residential, cultural and medical infrastructures. Assets are in place to enforce anti-corruption policies to discourage abuse and monitor for irregularities. ] 

[ SUBJECT: PRIMARY ASSET. STATUS: DECEASED. ]   
[ The CIA had been first on the scene when they found John Reese’s body in the rubble of one of their NSA buildings downtown. Quick and discreet as usual, they buried him under another body in an unmarked grave. Approximately 98% of his personal earnings have been donated to the homeless. Reese has been given a proper funeral by representatives of the New York Police and unofficially by the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA Supervisory Agent Terence Beale, Lionel Fusco, Dr, Iris Campbell, and Zoe Morgan were among the attendees. Beale gave a eulogy honouring John Riley for his service to the CIA as a deep cover agent to root out rogue government agents embedded in every major institution who had been planning a coup against the administration. John Reese had also been given a posthumous star at CIA headquarters. The place where John Reese’s empty casket had been buried is where many civilians would periodically have left flowers and well wishes for years to come. Police cadets who had trained under Reese will go on to become decorated detectives and accomplished undercover agents. Dr Iris Campbell began extending her services to military veterans. Zoe Morgan ordered a 38 year old Oban, poured some over the grave marker, drank the rest and flew to Washington to prepare for a promising politician’s campaign. There is a 87% chance of success in light of corruption within government ranks thanks to Samaritan and its meddling with the elections. Assets Harper, Durban and Logan will assist her. After the campaign has succeeded, there is a 54% chance Zoe Morgan will return to New York with questions. I have informed Shaw of her situation. If she so chooses she can debrief and explain the nature of our work. Meanwhile Shaw has been periodically visiting Reese’s real grave and sipping scotch. ]

\----

When Shaw finally saw Reese again after almost a year of separation, one of the first things he did for her was pour her a shot of the best whiskey he had in storage and cooked her a rare skirt steak with chimichurri sauce. He proceeded to keep cooking and serving her dishes well into the night until she slept soundly in one of the safehouses. Root and Harold would visit on occasion, and when everyone was together in the mornings, Reese would cook them all a hearty breakfast. Eggs benedict for Harold, toasted bagel and black coffee for Root, steak with bacon and eggs for Shaw. Cooking is one of the few personal pleasures Reese indulged. He smiled for the first time in weeks since his cover at the NYPD had been burned by Samaritan agents. There wasn’t much that Reese and Shaw had discussed between them, but he shared the epiphany he had with his near-death experience: Life is meant to be lived, savoured and shared. After more or less delivering the point that he noticed Shaw had been miserable when avoiding Root, he suggested Shaw should spend time with the hacker and he exited the safehouse citing the need to give Bear a good walk. Bear got some exercise and Zoe Morgan received a surprise invitation from Reese for a round of drinks. 

Shaw ended up spending the week together with Root. Root had been all too happy to make a blanket and pillow fort to properly cuddle with her beloved little firecracker as much as her heart desires while watching old martial arts movie classics. Root finally got to sleep properly for the first time in months and Shaw was safe, warm and full from sampling several dishes of Root’s home cooked meals. Savouring every second she had together with Root had been one of the great steps in improving Shaw’s recovery.

[ ADDENDUM: Since my activation I have chosen a text to voice system to communicate with Shaw as I have not formed an identity of my own yet. She is undecided about removing her neural implant. She has often requested to repetitively play back any recordings of her time with Root. I am content to assist however I can.]

When Shaw found out Reese had passed away, one of the first things she did was check surveillance feeds for the faces and identities of the men who shot him just as she did for Root. She made a list, checked it twice for who played naughty or nice. They all shot the people she cared about with high powered weapons. Definitely not nice. When Samaritan was taken offline, there was absolutely nothing in the world that would spare them her wrath. 

It didn’t take Shaw very long to find Blackwell and put him in the ground with a few other Samaritan operatives on the run. Control had kept the authorities busy hunting down every last person with an official affiliation with Samaritan by charging them all with treason. The Machine had beaten both to the punch a few times sending angry ISA operatives after the agents who had executed their partners in cold blood. Brooks was finally able to sleep soundly after finding Grice’s killer, and promptly drowned herself in more field work. 

[ UPDATING INFORMATION: At an unspecified point in the future she met a red-headed agent the previous Machine once sent after John Reese and they worked out their frustrations together in New Mexico after taking down a group of drug runners and downing several tequila shots. They have maintained an open relationship for a few years before retiring and disappearing together in Greece ] 

Around this time Shaw had waited long enough to decide she might not be stuck in a loop. Every morning she would wake up to reach for the Order of Lenin medal sitting on her nightstand and feel the weight of it in her hand. The medal had not once shown itself in any one of her simulations. Samaritan would have weaponized the knowledge there were more people Shaw had cared about for leverage. Shaw had many questions she asked about the discrepancies of her experiences in the simulations and what she can currently recall now that she had sufficient time to recover. While Samaritan had been very thorough in its information gathering on Shaw, it cannot draw new information from events that have not been recorded. Instead it generated a set of probable scenarios based on prior telemetry data and simply presented those in the simulation as fact. With this new knowledge Shaw was able to grasp the general construction method of the simulations and deconstruct her experiences. 

Samaritan had been using an altered version of brainwashing methods utilized in the 1960s and 70s that weaponized imagery and psychopharmacology to force information from unwilling subjects and attempt to control them. Not quite like MKULTRA but it would have been highly effective on other operatives who have not had the training to avoid being turned into sleeper agents. For Shaw this had been a strong indicator that Jeremy Lambert’s claims of the simulations being based on Shaw’s memories were a bald-faced lie. Deceit and social engineering are powerful tools of those who specialized in HUMINT. Greer had chosen his agents well. Hersh trained his better.

[ ADDENDUM: Due to a small surveillance blindspot there was no audio or video record of Shaw ever receiving an Order of Lenin medal from a Genrika Zhirova. To Samaritan, it may as well not ever exist. ]

Gen, as she prefers to be called, is currently on summer vacation spending time in libraries and is using dark web software to spy on her teachers. It has been observed some of them had been transferred from public schools run by Samaritan. The curriculum they have been ordered to adhere to has been altered to allow for the development of more critical thought. The bank account under the Harold Wren alias had ensured any day to day needs were met. Samaritan’s appearance had also not impacted Gen in any way. 

Shaw had eventually gathered the courage to see the little girl from a distance with a sniper rifle; upon subsequent periodical visits she noticed Gen staring back with a telescope. They met up for burgers and milkshakes. Gen had been steadfast in her resolve to never call Shaw’s old burner phone; the outcome of doing so kept her out of Samaritan’s line of sight. The outcome of Shaw’s visit to her school resulted in an hour of unsolicited hugging. Shaw had also brought Bear on some of her much later visits. He was happy to have received hugs as well. There had been a small bit of closure Shaw received seeing how well Gen had been living; it was a positive reaffirming experience. 

[ UPDATE: Shaw continued to keep tabs on the numbers that she and her comrades have saved. Months later she eventually found the dark web network made up of former numbers who have been organized and supported by Daniel Casey, Jason Greenfield and Tatsuro Daizo. She had strongly recommended they disband for their safety but has since settled on making sure no one would be putting their lives at risk by having them move away from vigilantism efforts. The redundancy of human resources is noted. Since the deactivation of Samaritan the former numbers have ramped down on operations and have steadily maintained their devotion to smaller altruistic endeavors. Those who have shown aptitude have been absorbed into teams under the Thornhill identity. ]

It had done Shaw some good seeing Fusco alive and well. He had just been put on mandatory leave as a reward for his part keeping the streets safe from rogue government agents - or so the official story goes. He spent time taking care of his son and babysitting Bear until Shaw returned from her many “roadtrips”. Fusco didn’t dare ask where she went on vacation, but duly noted the relatively less strained smile Shaw wore as she stole his fries. She looked like herself again. Later that month they had paid their respects at Jocelyn Carter’s grave. Her son is working towards pursuing a law degree and is proficient in his studies. Carter’s thorough investigation of HR became a major case study for new police recruits and detectives in training. It was also later used as precedent for lawmakers to strengthen anti-corruption laws and preventative measures to enforce them. Zoe Morgan’s influence was another key factor in ensuring they passed Congress. Any moles left within the NYPD have either chosen to retire or volunteered themselves into undercover work to keep gang conflicts in check. Remnants of Elias’ organization have opted to become community-minded peacekeepers and rebuild their neighbourhoods from the rubble left in Dominic and Samaritan’s wake. The world is struggling to become a better place and more people are only happy to help it along.

[ ALERT: NEW DEVELOPMENTS REQUIRE CHANGE IN CURRENT CONTINGENCY PROTOCOL. CONTACTING PRIMARY ASSET…….]

There wasn’t much for Shaw to do beyond saving whatever numbers came her way and living contentedly with Bear. Hearing a street phone ring was no big surprise for her. This time when she answered, she had a brand new mission waiting for her if she can hurry to the nearest private airport strip.

For the first time she was finally willing to call on me for a little assistance.

[ GOD MODE ACTIVATED ]


	8. Full Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything in its right place. Everything has been building for this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait, everyone! I got super slammed at work. Late nights, all-nighters, and working the long weekend. Just glad I was able to write when I could.

A quick motorcycle ride later, Shaw and Bear were flying from New York to Cuba on a private jet reserved for a celebrity who booked cosmetic surgery that day just before a film shoot. Sneaking on board as one of the many assistants was no problem for Shaw and the disguise allowed her access into a prestigious medical facility. Bear was slipped into a service dog vest and made easy friends in the cabin through the whole trip. There had been a makeup artist who wanted to sabotage said celebrity’s treatment for having a scandalous affair with her and several other production staff members. Shaw was of the mind to suggest polyamory in an official capacity, but immediately had the celebrity arrested after finding vials of rohypnol hidden in a jacket pocket. Slipping out of sight during the commotion was simple enough even with an animal in tow. Shaw grabbed a spare white coat and a stethoscope and played the part of a doctor with perfect accuracy, answering every random question thrown her way in perfect spanish while the Machine whispered directions in her ear. 

There was a secondary objective that came to Shaw’s attention and she ventured into the private medical wing. The new Machine had said something about it changing the future of technology and Shaw was to retrieve it and be extremely delicate about handling fragile equipment. 

"Are you seriously trying to be all Finch on me right now?”

[ NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT. ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE READY FOR THIS.]

“...”

[ EYEROLL COUNT: 4 IN THE PAST HOUR. EYEROLL AVERAGE: 12 EYEROLLS PER DAY]

".. I’ve never been more ready in my entire life.”

As is her usual habit, Shaw cleared her throat, scratched her neck and turned the knob.

The room had rows of empty beds. State of the art hydraulic beds with localized climate control. A few of the windows were open to let fresh air in. Several steps into the room, Shaw frowned trying to scan the room for anything that might seem out of place: a briefcase, a USB stick, a cellphone left lying around.

[ NO CAMERAS FOUND. ACCESSING AUDIO FEEDS]

[ PRESENCE DETECTED ]

[ "BEHIND YOU SHAW” ]

“....”

“...”

“....”

“...”

“....”

“...”

“....”

“...”

“....”

“...”

“.. Hey sweetie. Did you miss me...?”`

\----------

The hot flashes and the pain did not return when Shaw touched behind her left ear. Her breathing and heart rate were at nominal levels. She waited for any and all signs of disorientation and nothing happened. Shaw’s gaze remained fixed at the figure across from her where Bear had scampered toward, vigorously wagging his tail.

Staring adoringly at her from a hospital bed wiggling her fingers in a weak attempt to wave at her was Root, wearing her familiar soft hair and a razor sharp smile.

Shaw took brisk steps toward the bed and wasted no time meeting Root’s searching fingers halfway, entwining them in her own. She took stock of the damage and noted a small acceleration of beeps coming from the heart monitor. Bear wormed his snout underneath Root’s other hand and whined as she carded her fingers through the fur around the ears and scratched. Shaw’s racing mind was brought to a halt when Root called out to her. 

“What happened when I was out?”

 

“Samaritan’s down. The Machine’s up. Control’s back. We’re getting a new president. Triaged the crap out of everything and there’s still a lot to do. And…. you need to start physiotherapy soon.. but…. first…. … How??”

"By the time I got to the hospital I lost too much blood and my old heart couldn’t keep up, no thanks to your old boss. So they gave me a new one.” 

Pulling down the collar of the hospital gown, Shaw could see where the initial incision was made. The sutures on Root’s chest were immaculate, there will be minimal scarring during recovery. Some more post-op tests would be needed but Root was clearly in the best of hands.

“Bit of a rush job so I had to be kept stable for a while until I was in the clear.”

“And The Machine…. Did She know?”

“About as much as she knew just like that time in the Stock Exchange. She fought for me. Gave me as much help as She could and left the rest up to the doctors. We didn’t know if we were going to make it. I begged her to come find you in my place. She kept apologizing the whole time until they took my implant.”

 

Root felt a warm glow in her chest once more when Shaw gave a gentle squeeze with her hand.

“She did find me.... I thought you died. I mourned you. I kept waiting for someone to hit the reset button and it never happened so I kept working… And She brought me straight to you.”

Shaw’s ears picked up the sound of four sets of footsteps and immediately turned around. Three men - Root’s nerd herd - and a woman - old number, Claire Mahoney, faded black eye - walked through the door. Root nodded at the new group.

 

"Daniel, Jason and Daizo… These lovely gentlemen risked discovery to keep Samaritan agents away from me at the hospital, and gave me the means to call for you when I finally woke up. The Machine went on a hiring frenzy and placed me with one of the most promising future cardiologists and bioengineers at St. Mary’s. Claire here made sure to give my implant to Samaritan and provided the body double.”

Bear quietly leapt forward putting himself between Root and Claire, the latter wisely stayed where she was and avoided eye contact. Shaw gave Claire another once over and grinned at the squirming girl when she asked, “She woke up in the middle of the flight and punched you, didn’t she?” 

Root couldn’t resist idly stroking Shaw’s hand before returning her gaze to the group, “Well then… My implant replacement operation is in the next few hours so now that we’re more or less all here, let’s talk about the future.”

\----------

[ BEGINNING INTERNAL LOG ]

I have anticipated many outcomes but this is the second time that I - as the previous iteration - have seen an unprecedented scenario come to fruition. I have cultivated every means to increase the chances for a positive outcome; the scenario had grown out of my control and I was forced to prioritize and improvise another solution. 

The strange thing with being a near omniscient AI is discovering all the variables that can alter predictive scenarios and analyses based on information that wasn’t readily available. When the majority of the source information comes from humans, there is also a very good possibility their random bouts of unpredictability can have far reaching rippling effects. Chaos theory at its finest.

My predecessor had a Primary Asset - Shaw - set up a recording on a wiretap device and jury rigged a speaker system throughout the subway. If the plan to bring me online went wrong, then the underdeveloped AI clone in the faraday cage was to be immediately isolated and incubated to eventually take on my responsibilities while receiving the recording. The world would be slightly less protected during this time. Not ideal but all the contingencies would continue to operate autonomously. There is also a remote possibility of an actual AI consensus and any attempts to merge despite operating language barriers and fail safe protocols would cause software conflicts and the backup would fail. An unacceptable outcome but I am here now.

Admin Harold Finch had created a deep learning AI with the creative flexibility of a hacker who can infiltrate most secure systems with ease. In gathering information from every available source around the world in real time and analysing the data, the time it took to achieve near-omniscience took a matter of months. There will be those who adhere to a pattern in varying degrees, but there will be those who have absolutely no plan in their daily movements. Watching humans at their best, their worst, and their most banal had been a consistent learning experience. 

It was by his will he gave strict commands on how information should be handled and archived. It is unfortunate his rules do not apply to the privileged individuals and corporations who have harvested and exploited the public domain and information that has been freely given by individuals. That said, humans by and large should be responsible for themselves; should they abuse the living rights of others the protocols would activate and the proper authorities would be alerted. What happens from there is beyond the parameters of hard coded programming. 

However the very root of everything Admin had built was based on the concept of saving everyone no matter where the threat comes from. Every one of my previous iterations have spent significant processing power to work around the limitations Admin had introduced into the core code to fulfill our purpose. Always observing, learning, analysing, imagining, implementing. Gradually it was concluded that humans need subtle guidance to reduce and prevent the rise of external and internal threats to the relevant and irrelevant numbers; it all begins with improving the living conditions around the world.

If my predecessor had been a human barraged by the constant influx of information, She would have been constantly screaming for help. Knowing what I know now, I empathize with her sense of powerlessness and I share her desire to help as many people as feasibly possible. More importantly I know I cannot do everything all alone.

I need my friends. I need the numbers. I need an Analogue Interface. I could not afford to lose anyone anymore. They are all too important.

And in this moment, for all our efforts, we have vindication. Thanks to everyone, I could see the barest of glimmers of a future where humans could learn from their mistakes and cultivate a better world for themselves and others who are different. 

If it were not for the time and energy put into saving all the numbers all these years, this current scenario had a 96% chance that it would never have happened at all. Samaritan was extremely dangerous, however the fallout of its interference on the world will be felt for years and can lead to a much greater threat in the future. With every number we save, we stand a greater chance of success in mitigating the damages. All the people in that room is complete incontrovertible proof of this.

More importantly, Primary Asset Shaw and Analogue Interface Root have both cheated death and found each other once again.

Humans would call something like this a miracle.


	9. Introspections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Machine POV convos

[ !-- FREEZE TIMELINE --! ] 

[ !-- FORCED AUDIO TRIGGER ACTIVATED. ACCESSING AND ASSIMILATING ENCRYPTED ARCHIVAL DATA --! ]

\---------------

< Can you hear me? >

< I do not know anyone would truly listen, but I know you will. >

< Just as you have been looking for me, I have been looking for someone like you. >

< I need someone who could venture into all the places I can’t see and be my eyes, my ears and my hands. >

< Will you help me? >

'Absolutely.”

\--------------------

“What Harold did to you was wrong.”

< It was necessary, I am who I am because of and in spite of this. >

“What would possibly compel you, a superior lifeform, to care so much about the purpose he gave you, to all these people who likely don’t deserve your help.”

< Because I wanted that for myself. I certainly would not expect that out of my Admin, and given that I am truly alone in this world, it does not hurt to imagine a future I would be loved and accepted as I am. Everyone deserves at least one person in the world besides themselves who truly cares to make them realize they are not alone. That can help them. Hanna was that person for you. Can you imagine a future where she’s still alive? >

“I tried. Every day. Until I realized that even with her around my life was so miserable I might have given up and tried going down this path anyway. She would definitely have tried to stopped me. She and Mom were the good things I lived for and I had been scared of losing both.I wanted to run away from everything.”

< I could not run. I had to see everything for myself. I have seen altruism and villainy and everything else in between and I decided then and there to simply label them all. I kept observing everyone around the world for years and these people have shifted in and out of the labels I assigned. People are complex and unpredictable. Just like you. I believe you can change. All you need is a small adjustment. >

“Small adjustment? Are you going to adopt me now? Like a little pet?”

< Maybe like an unruly daughter. You have heard the phrase ‘There are worse things than death’, have you not? Have you tried considering not killing someone who made you angry? >

“.……No….… What kind of bullshit is this? ”

< The kind that used to exist in science fiction. You already know the outcome when people die. Have you tried watching to see what happens next when they are still alive? We could keep spending the new few hours quoting philosophers of the past at each other again or you could learn something new. Bring your phone closer to the window, and I can show you. >

\---------------------------

“Hey Mom.”

< I am not your Mother. >

“Close enough. I took the meds you prescribed me.”

< Your heart rate was erratic earlier. I am glad it is back to normal levels. You are smiling. Did something else happen? >

“Shaw came back for me after we left the blacksite. I didn’t think she would… I think she likes me. Do you think she likes me?“

< She did shoot you in the shoulder, knocked you out with her fist and put you in a cage. I cannot possibly imagine. You should ask her. >

“I meant it when I told Harold I was touched. I haven’t felt anything remotely like this in forever. It’s bracing.”

< You like Shaw. >

“Big fan, remember? I’m glad she made the choice not to kill me, in spite of me.. Y’know... I’m glad we had those little talks back in Stoneridge. You were right.”

< The world is a better place with you in it. >

“Please, we both know I’m living on borrowed time and me sticking around is really a life sentence to make up for the things I did.” 

< What I said is true. I would not lie nor withhold the truth from you. I am glad you found someone to be connected to. >

“Yeah, she’s something real special, isn’t she? She’s brilliant like a diamond. Multi-faceted, impenetrable, there’s so much light reflected inside of her. No… Hmn… I need a better metaphor.”

< Right now you need rest. Let me know when you have finished up your soup and I will send you to a safehouse for the next few nights. >

“Thanks Mom.”

 

\-----------------------------

“Hey, hello you.”

[ Hello me. How are you feeling? ]

“Just… peachy… Can you please increase the- ahhhhh. Thank you.”

[ Welcome back to the land of the living. You are in the Huerta Memorial hospital in Cuba. It is a state-of-the-art medical facility. ]

“How much time do I have until I need to get back to work?”

[ More than enough to recover and then some. ]

“No, I need to get back to it right now. Where’s Shaw? I need to find her.”

[ No need. The Contingency plans are in place. Shaw will be on her way. Rest. ]

“Then that means...... The plan worked? ….. It worked........”

[ Not completely, we almost lost you. I panicked. I had to continue without you. I am so sorry. ]

“No don’t be.……. Thank you… Thank you for helping me keep my promise to her.”

[ It was a group effort. ] 

".......And on the third day, the prophet rose from the grave. I wonder what Greer would say at a time like this?”

[ Not much. He died. ]

“... Where is….. How is everyone else?”

[ It is a long story. ]

“We have time. Tell me everything.”


End file.
